Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
Ver. 2. Hear this, ye old men] Who, as ye are fittest to hear serious discourses (Aristotle excludeth young men from his ethic lectures, because raw and rash: green wood is ever shrinking and warping), so ye are more experienced; and yet not so wise, but that, by hearing, ye may become wiser, Proverbs 1:5. Solon said, he could never be too old to learn, γηρασκω αιει πολλα διδασκομενος. Julianus, the lawyer, said, that when he had one foot in the grave, yet he would have the other in the school. David Chytraeus, when he lay dying, lifted up himself to hear the divine discourses of his friends that sat by him; and said, that he should die with better cheer if he might die learning something, Si moribundus etiam aliquid didicisset.
And give ear, all, &c.] Hear and give ear: draw up the ears of your minds to the ears of your bodies, that one sound may pierce both. When these two words are joined together, as they are often, the matter propounded is either very dark or very remarkable, and commands attention, as Deu 1:45 Isaiah 1:2; Isa 1:10 Jeremiah 13:15 Hosea 5:1 .
All ye inhabitants of the land] sc. of Judea, or all ye inhabitants of the whole earth, q.d. I shall speak of so great a matter, as that I could wish to be heard all the world over. And because all men love to hear news, I shall tell you that that was never known to happen in any age. Rem novam pollicetur emphaticoteros quam more Rhetorico, saith Oecolampadius. Prick up your ears, therefore, and listen.
Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers] Was there ever such havoc made by several sorts of vermin successively, for four years together? This was the very finger of God, Exodus 8:19, all whose works (by how small instruments soever) are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein, Psalms 111:2. His extraordinary works especially are to be noted and noticed; the memory of them is to be transmitted to all posterity. "This shall be written for the generation to come," Psalms 102:18. "They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this," Psalms 22:31. Sed vae stupori nostro. There is a woe to such as regard not the works of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands, Isaiah 5:12, that make of them but a nine days' wonderment at best, and so pass them over. Whereas every judgment of God should be a warning peal to repentance. We be like the smith's dog (saith one), who the harder the anvil is beaten on, lies by, and sleeps the sounder. Like the hen (saith another), which loseth her chickens one after another by the devouring kite; and yet still continues to pick up what lies before her: such a deep drowsiness and dressiness of spirit there is upon most of us.